Why are Cell Phone bills in the U.S. so high?

[Sir Asvald]

Luckily for me something like GiffGaff is around. Its really cheap. You're not bound to a contract. They has something called Goodie bag. Each one has different offers. I pay £12 for unlimited texts and calls and  4GB of data, which is enough for me.

[LogicalDrm]

54 minutes ago, TaycoFlayco said:

I thought you were talking about me for a minute. I know a lot about that act and it ticks me off.

Nah, you are good. I was talking to person I quote. Who was clearly clueless. And I'm from another country.

[Jtalk4456]

3 hours ago, TaycoFlayco said:

Did you know that that marketing strategy is a bunch of B.S.?

[Broseidon, Lord of the Bro]

Hey, They gotta afford to pay the lobbyists somehow

[LinusOnLine]

1 hour ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

You haven't watched any Level1 coverage on this issue, haven't you? Or researched yourself? I know more than you then. Telecommunication companies got de-regulated back in late-90s. Meaning that they saved money to be used in upgrading infrastructure. They would have had all the money they needed to do it. But they didn't, and current government doesn't have balls to enforce those old contracts. Main reason for throttling and them not allowing actual high speeds is that infrastructure can't handle it.

 

Here's old Tek Syndicate video where Wendell explains it

 

Its true that smaller countries have it bit easier. But our governments also have balls to keep companies at their feet. If someone doesn't follow rules and keep upgrading, they get thrown away pretty quickly. Even if there would be situation where no publicly traded company would be willing to spend money, capitalism would bring another one in their place. And gaining monopoly-ish situation for 5 million user country is kinda significant thing.

It does not really have anything to do with size and everything to do with how EU and many European governments laws regarding what the cell companies have to do and are allowed to do. It is cheap to use cells pretty much everywhere in the EU and many of the cell companies are EU wide which would actually compare rather well to the states. As usual Americans are being lied to

[LogicalDrm]

16 minutes ago, LinusOnLine said:

It does not really have anything to do with size and everything to do with how EU and many European governments laws regarding what the cell companies have to do and are allowed to do. It is cheap to use cells pretty much everywhere in the EU and many of the cell companies are EU wide which would actually compare rather well to the states. As usual Americans are being lied to

How EU is deciding in this is rather miniscule and is mainly about roaming fees. EU doesn't govern inside member countries. You can see this in countries where internet regulations allow throttling services.

[LinusOnLine]

1 minute ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

How EU is deciding in this is rather miniscule and is mainly about roaming fees. EU doesn't govern inside member countries. You can see this in countries where internet regulations allow throttling services.

I was thinking of the roaming fees. I think it is rather similar between Finland and Sweden

[Ravendarat]

Ya if you think is the states is high try checking Canada, my cell bill is around $170 a month and thats with 11gb of data, so ya Im having a hard time feeling bad for anyone in the states that is upset with the phone plans

[nekogod]

19 hours ago, Suika said:

Have you ever looked at how big the United States is? Have you ever considered that major carriers have to build and maintain infrastructure to cover as much of that as reasonably possible, all the while still paying for labor costs, marketing, customer support, legal protection, public relations, etc?

Well perhaps, but then they should also have way more customers, so you'd have thought the cost per customer would be pretty similar.

[rejor11]

The US gets screwed when it comes to cellular data (and I assume other western countries do too). 

In Taiwan, I pay about 15 bucks a month for unlimited data at high speeds with no throttling. And that's on the expensive side.

 

In mainland China, I was paying about 40 RMB per month for unlimited 4g data. No throttling. Wanna know how much that is in USD? About 8 bucks.

 

[circeseye]

it all depends really on who you go with...if you go with att, verizon, sprint, tmobile, yep they charge way to much for what they give and once you sign up good luck getting out (it can be a pain to get out of their contracts, even if it got fulfilled).

best bet is going to the side providers, metro pcs and the like......at least with like metro both me and the wife have unlimited everything for 60 a month (30 per phone) no contract...